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Race to dump the 4870 ROM, Who's first?

The Rominator said:
You should check to see that those place counting numbers are skipping ALL the way past end of the section of the ROM they are meant to skip.

When rihldanger did his rom for XFX, he found that the standard script did't work due to the PC BIOS being just a touch bigger than it should be.

He had to skooch it further back.
Click to expand...

Hmm, so you're saying the 20000 number at the end of the ROM dump maybe needs to be smaller? I'll give that a shot later, if so.
 
skyhand said:
Hmm, so you're saying the 20000 number at the end of the ROM dump maybe needs to be smaller? I'll give that a shot later, if so.
Click to expand...

No...internally...as in the script counts a certain number of spaces and places BIOS into other BIOS.

rihldinger discovered that for XFX this count made them overlap.
 
The Rominator said:
No...internally...as in the script counts a certain number of spaces and places BIOS into other BIOS.

rihldinger discovered that for XFX this count made them overlap.
Click to expand...

Ah, okay. I'll pretend as best I can that I know how to work that. ;) Perhaps I could Google for a crash course in it, but I'm afraid that I'll brick the card, or the computer at the rate this is going. Heh. Is this something that is applied to the dumped ROM itself, or is it a set of commands in DOS?

Thanks for the tips, by the way. :cool:
 
I freaking love the internet for just this reason. Pretty much all the info you could ever want.

Thanks for this post!
 
jjhny said:
Also, on the cursor jump, I wonder if it is the mouse, or the driver you use. Is it a logitech? The logitech drivers were always bad news - I went to steermouse and every device works like a charm.
Click to expand...

I tried 4 mice:
HP USB generic, Apple laser USB one button, Kensington USB MIB, Apple USB Mighty Mouse. All were using the apple drivers no 3rd party drivers were used ever. Tried on a whim usb overdrive without any change.
 
Ok my problem doesnt fit in here 100% but I thought you guys might know the most about it.

I got my hands on an actualy Mac Version of the ATI 4870 (needed that one because I got a Cinema Display) for my early 2008 Mac Pro. It does work, however w/o drivers I can't start WoW (cannot start without 3d acceleration). Also I cannot setup any color calibration profiles for it.

Can anyone direct me to the beta 10.5.7 drivers?

thanks
 
yoomy said:
Ok my problem doesnt fit in here 100% but I thought you guys might know the most about it.

I got my hands on an actualy Mac Version of the ATI 4870 (needed that one because I got a Cinema Display) for my early 2008 Mac Pro. It does work, however w/o drivers I can't start WoW (cannot start without 3d acceleration). Also I cannot setup any color calibration profiles for it.

Can anyone direct me to the beta 10.5.7 drivers?

thanks
Click to expand...


Feel free to read through this thread.

They are posted 3 or 4 times here.
 
I plugged my PowerColor 4870 with Mac ROM into a PC and found that its bandwidth was 2.5GT/s (with hwinfo32). I'll re-flash the card to a modded 4870/Mac ROM to see how it looks on PC.
 
4870 Card Flash Rundown

My experience has been great, no problems (other than the 2.5 GT/s PCIe speed). Tests in Cinebench show the card as running slightly faster than my Apple 8800 GT card. No bugs in apps, all runs very well!

What I bought:
SAPPHIRE 100259-1GL Radeon HD 4870 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP
PN# 288-20e85-130sa SKU# 11133-04-20r
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102801

2 cables from AMD/ATI for x1900 - Power Cable for Radeon® X1900 MAC G5 Edition
http://shop.ati.com/product.asp?sku=3280778

Setup:
MacPro octo 2.8 (early 2008) System 10.5.6 with bootcamp Windows XP sp2
Winflash 2.0.1.7
http://www.techpowerup.com/downloads/1364/Winflash_2.0.1.7.html

I had the original ATI 2600xt card in slot 2 and the new 4870 in slot 1 - it’s a very tight fit with heatsink bolts - but it fits..

Booted from OSX into Windows XP Pro (no custom drivers for either card were installed in windows XP - in fact when I tried loading the drivers I had to roll back to an install with no drivers or both cards stopped working (conflict apparently).

Once I was in bootcamp mode (startup defaulted ito XP) I shut down and removed the 2600 card. I rebooted (into windows) and monitor saw the card (remember do NOT install windows drivers)

I used Winflash to extract the Flash ROM from the 4870 and saved it.

On a lark I pulled elvisizer’s custom ROM which worked like a charm!
https://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?p=7314503#post7314503

I used winflash to write elvisizer’s ROM to the card (took a couple of minutes). I rebooted. Worked fine in windows.

Now the big moment - I rebooted into Mac OS X and... No problems! It looked good, no glitches and was recognized by the system.

From there I loaded the 10.5.6 4870 beta drivers (on this thread somewhere)

Then I loaded the motmot and natit kext (read this whole thread) and all worked well. IMPORTANT: when installing into the system folder BE CAREFUL! I had to custom change the permissions of natit by using the utility “batmod” -you can find this app on MacUpdate.

Anyway, it worked for me, and most others on this board using this combo of the sapphire card and the custom ROM.

Note: I would avoid the more offbeat cards unless you REALLY know what you are doing - if you’re a newb to flashing things stick with a plain vanilla card, no weird variations or 4890’s for you! If you buy a card that won’t work don’t expect any hand-holding. Again, if you are not an experienced hacker, stick with a card like the sapphire.

Thanks to all who made this possible, especially Rominator, Netkas and Elvisizer. This is an epic thread.
 
My PowerColor 4870 512M card is always 2.5GT/s with its original ROM or Mac-modded ROM on a PC (Dell Precision T3400 with PCIE 2.0 support). So it's not Mac Pro's fault. Blame card manufacturers?
 
Total ROM newbie here - great work you guys are doing. Couple questions out of pure curiosity:
1. Does a non-apple un-hackflashed 4870 (or any other card for that matter) work under Boot Camp? If no, why... and if yes, will it work with latest manufacturer drivers?

2. What are the possibilities of getting a 4890 flashed?
 
The Rominator said:
This sounds familiar, doesn't it?

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1956601&tstart=0

I have also found reports of newer NEC monitors not being properly detected on DVI of Mac OEM 4870.

We are not the only ones finding these a bit squirrelly at times.
Click to expand...

I got a little misty-eyed when I read that linked discussion... There are more people out there just like me!

Hopefully apple will take notice of that post (as it is a real card... possibly).
 
jjhny said:
Once I was in bootcamp mode (startup defaulted ito XP) I shut down and removed the 2600 card. I rebooted (into windows) and monitor saw the card (remember do NOT install windows drivers)

I used Winflash to extract the Flash ROM from the 4870 and saved it.

On a lark I pulled elvisizer’s custom ROM which worked like a charm!
Click to expand...

jj...I have the exact same card that I've flashed with elvisizer's ROM. I works great in OS X, but not in my newly installed XP partition. The screen just stays dark, but the 2600 works fine. Do I need to remove the 2600 for the 4870 to work?

TIA

Bob
 
BConvery said:
jj...I have the exact same card that I've flashed with elvisizer's ROM. I works great in OS X, but not in my newly installed XP partition. The screen just stays dark, but the 2600 works fine. Do I need to remove the 2600 for the 4870 to work?

TIA

Bob
Click to expand...

It appears so. I think there is a conflict with 2 different ATI cards. This is unfortunate - I guess a cheap nvidia would be the answer for a second card.

I had a problem in the beginning when XP would try to install drivers every time I booted. As soon as I installed drivers, both cards would go black and I had to do a system recovery to the point where no drivers were installed.
 
medsource said:
I tried 4 mice:
HP USB generic, Apple laser USB one button, Kensington USB MIB, Apple USB Mighty Mouse. All were using the apple drivers no 3rd party drivers were used ever. Tried on a whim usb overdrive without any change.
Click to expand...

Did it turn out to be the NEC monitor issue as posted on Apple discussions?
 
swissmann said:
jjhny, congrats on your success and thanks for the recap. Can you use both DVI ports simultaneously, if so with what output. Thanks.
Click to expand...

Haven't tried it yet... have a Wacom Cintiq that I want the 2nd port for - which is why I didn't want apple's 4870 and that irritating mini DVI port!

Machine will replace my main setup in a few days, will let you know then. Also I have hope that sys 10.5.7 will clear up any issues!
 
10.5.7 is getting closer. A new developer seed hit. Of course it mentioned work on graphics drivers. I wonder if this affects the flashing at all.
 
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